Mark 12:38-44 - A Widow's Faith - November 7, 2021

It’s Tuesday of Holy Week, just days before he will be arrested, beaten and nailed hand and foot to a tree – and what Jesus is up to? He’s not worrying about himself, preparing himself mentally and spiritually for the spit and the shame and the cross – but teaching his disciples. That in itself is pretty shocking, but perhaps even more shocking is what Jesus chooses for his object lesson. Today’s “teachers” – politicians, news anchors, celebrities – tend to focus on the big and notable issues of the day: What has Covid been up to lately? What do these past week’s elections mean for America? What’s going on with Aaron Rodgers? As we’ve worked our way through Mark’s Gospel this year, it’s hard not to notice that Jesus has a radically different style of teaching. Instead of choosing to focus on the big, important things of the world, he directs his disciples – and our – eyes and ears to small, unimportant things – in order to teach us big, important lessons: he uses mustard seeds (Mark 4:30-34); a young boy’s lunch (Mark 6:30-44); little children (Mark 10:13-16); and a withered fig tree (Mark 10:46-52). Small, insignificant things and people seemed to be important to Jesus – in his hands, they teach the biggest lessons.

Today he chooses a widow. Widows seem to be the theme of the day, don’t they? We had the widow at Zarephath (1 Kings 17:8-16). Widows serve as evidence of the Jewish leaders’ hypocrisy – in that they devour widows’ houses and then try to cover it up by offer[ing] long prayers (compare them to today’s televangelists who speak and act very piously and sanctimoniously – but what they really want is for you to buy their latest video or book). And, last but not least, Jesus draws the attention of his disciples to a poor widow who drops her last two coins into the offering box at the temple. Widows may seem insignificant to the world, but they have a special place in God’s heart – and in his Word. Think of Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi – God caused an entire book of the Bible to be written about them! Or Anna, who was one of the few people in Israel to celebrate the birth of Jesus; and who was also a widow of eighty-four years – her name will forever be linked to Jesus (Luke 2:37). Paul spent a good portion of his first letter to Timothy urging him to honor widows (1 Timothy 5:3-16). And James writes: religion that is pure and undefiled in the sight of God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their affliction (James 1:27). Clearly, our Lord has a special place in his heart for widows.

And for good reason. In Biblical times, women couldn’t normally go out and get jobs – and therefore they couldn’t support themselves. With no real social safety net, they were left with few options. If a woman was widowed at a young age, she could remarry – like Ruth did (Ruth 4:10). Ideally, older widows would be taken in by other friends or relatives – like Jesus commending his mother Mary to John at the cross (John 19:26-27). But if a widow had no one to take care of her, she was virtually helpless. She was one notch below a beggar – not only did she have nothing but she had no socially acceptable way to get anything. That was the situation in which the widow at Zarephath found herself and her son. Zarephath was a town in Sidon, located over 100 miles north of Jerusalem on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. She wasn’t an Israelite, she wasn’t one of God’s people, not one of the insiders. She was what the Israelites called the “goyim,” an outsider. And that’s what makes the Lord’s command to Elijah to go to her so noteworthy: it proves that God’s mercy knows no boundaries; that the blessings and Savior that were to come through Israel weren’t only for Israel but for all nations, even for widows…even for “goyim” like us.

She had enough for one last meal and no assurances that another could be found. Sadly, how many single mothers in our own wealthy nation have faced a similar situation? And then Elijah shows up…another mouth to feed. Her pantry is bare, where was she going to find enough food for everyone? Elijah offers her nothing more than the Word of the Lord: do not be afraid. Go and do just as you said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from the flour and bring it out to me. Then go and make another for you and your son. (1 Kings 17:13-14). She could have said no. She could have done the responsible thing and taken care of herself and her son and told this strange, foreign prophet to buzz off. But she didn’t. She did what Elijah told her. Imagine what must have been going through her mind after she gave Elijah his bread and went back inside hoping there was just a pinch of flour and a drop of oil remaining for herself and her son. And then, imagine her surprise when she reached into the jar of flour and shook the jug and felt that they were full again! More than enough for herself and her son for that day – and, not only that, but day after day, there was always enough. Every time she reached into that cupboard, there’s enough for her to bake her daily bread.

What does this teach us? We pray – at least weekly, and hopefully daily – “give us this day our daily bread.” You understand what we’re praying for, right? Just enough bread for this day, for today – and nothing more. Unfortunately, outside of the 4th petition I don’t think that we limit our prayers and petitions to God to just the necessities for today. We often pray that the Lord would give us enough bread for a month, a year, our retirement, a lifetime – enough so that we don’t have to work (or at least worry) anymore. While we may take 10 seconds to thank God for the meals we eat three (or more) times a day, we spend far more time thinking about saving for our children’s education, our own retirement, and the estate we will leave behind when we’re dead. Instead of appreciating the bread that’s on our plate we lose sleep over the volatility of the stock market and its impact on our investments. Like the rich fool in Jesus’ parable, we spend a lifetime working and saving to build barns (or bank accounts) we don’t need to store grain (or money) we will never use (Luke 12:13-21). We buy and store and hoard until we’re tripping over all our stuff and complain about having to organize so much junk (and if you doubt that, just try moving!). You know what that is, right? That’s greed. And Paul says that greed is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). It’s idolatry because it reveals that instead of trusting God to provide our daily bread we are placing our trust in our our wealth, our investments, our nest egg – in whatever promises to keep us safe, secure, well-fed and happy. What’s the cure for this insatiable greed, for this soul-destroying idolatry – not to mention, the cure for the stress, the anxiety, the heart-burn, the sleepless nights that come from placing your trust and hope in things that can never satisfy?

Let’s go back to Zarephath for a moment: The jar of flour did not run out, and the pitcher of oil did not become empty, just as the Lord had said through Elijah. In my mind this miracle was a lot like Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44). I imagine that Jesus just kept putting his hand into that little boy’s basket and kept pulling out more bread and more fish – but his disciples never would have seen a big pile of bread and fish. All they would have ever seen was those five loaves and two fish. I imagine that all that widow ever saw was that same jar of flour and that same jug of olive oil – no Costco pallet of flour or oil – but every time she reached for them there was more – just as the Lord had said. There’s the key. There’s the solution to the idolatry of greed. The Word of God. It not only exposes our sin and leads us to repentance, but it provides the cure. The creates everything out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3). It makes enough out of too little. The Word of the Lord provides daily bread. And that poor Gentile widow, who had nothing, trusted that Word of the Lord spoken by Elijah and found that the Lord gave her enough, and more than enough, for her and her son.

Which brings us our Gospel lesson. After Jesus had warned his disciples against the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders, Jesus was sitting in the temple courtyard, watching how (note that little word how!) the crowd put money into it, a nameless widow walked in to deposit her offering. Offerings were placed into these metal “trumpets” with long necks (something similar to the one you see on the bulletin cover). You can imagine, then, that when the wealthy came with their many coins it made a whole lot of noise when they dropped them into the offering box. And then this poor woman came. And there was no great clattering, nothing to draw anyone’s attention. Two little copper pennies, worth just a fraction of a day’s wages. If anyone heard anything at all, it was a quiet “plink, plink.” Nothing much to see; even less to hear.

But Jesus saw and heard something. He heard that barely audible “plink, plink.” And what he heard was a window into this widow’s heart. Now, admittedly, Jesus’ accounting standards would seem dubious to even a five-year-old: this poor widow put more into the offering box than all the others. No, she didn’t! She only put in on a fraction of a day’s wages. What’s wrong with Jesus’ ears? What Jesus heard wasn’t the clang of coins; it was faith and trust; a poor widow’s trust in the goodness and mercy of a God. For Jesus, it’s not the quantity that counts – it’s how that amount is given! It’s not about coins or cash or checks or direct deposits – it’s about faith. Sola fide – faith alone. That’s all that matters before God (Romans 3:28).

But faith is never alone. Faith, as Paul says, is always working itself out through love (Galatians 5:6). That’s what this widow was doing. Out of gratitude to God for his gifts to her, this poor widow was obeying the 1st Commandment: loving and trusting God above all things! This poor widow held those two tiny coins with the dead hands of faith. Dead hands, because that’s how easily she could let them go. She was dead to them and alive to God. Hers was a true sacrifice of love: For they all gave out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all that she had to live on. In those two plinking pennies – that had emptied this poor widow’s bank account – Jesus saw a heart filled with faith. So what’s the point? Is this about proportional giving? Is it that unless you’re giving everything, giving until your financial advisor fires you because you don’t have any more money to manage, that it doesn’t really count in God’s eyes? In working through this text over the past week one of my biggest questions was: why did the Holy Spirit even include this story in Mark’s Gospel? It seems to be a rather trivial event to record during the most important week in human history: Holy Week. And maybe that’s the point. With God, it’s never about the things the world deems to be so important. It’s about your heart. It’s about faith.

I doubt that any of us are putting every last cent into the offering plate this morning. I know I’m not. And while our offerings may amount to more than a couple of pennies – it’s definitely not enough to buy our way into heaven. You could give until the sheriff showed up at your house with a representative from the bank to repossess it – and it still wouldn’t make you right with God. God doesn’t really care about your money – he cares about your heart. But, for our sake, he recorded this story to show us that how we spend our money IS a window into our hearts; that is, that it shows us – us, not others, not the church council, not the pastor – whether our trust is in the Giver (James 1:17) or his gifts.

Two weeks ago we agreed with Martin Luther’s assessment that “we are all beggars.” Today we might say, “we are all widows.” We have nothing to give to God and we have no way to get anything to give to him. And yet God in his grace fills our empty hands with things we could never earn for ourselves. He redeemed us – bought us back from sin, death and the devil – not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19). He baptizes us into an inheritance that is undying, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:4). He feeds us with food we cannot purchase at any grocery store – his own body and blood – food that doesn’t just sustain your life today but forever. And he invites us to receive all of his gifts without money and without cost (Isaiah 55:1). And when you believe that, no matter your net worth, you are truly rich.

This text leaves us with many unanswered questions: How did that poor widow survive when she returned home from the temple? What did she eat? How did she pay her mortgage? I don’t know. But Jesus knows. And Jesus knows you, too. And he cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Learn this big lesson from these poor, insignificant widows: God doesn’t need your offerings but he does give us the privilege of giving them as a window into our hearts – so we can see whether our hearts are set on the Giver or his gifts. Worrying about money will never put a single slice of bread on your kitchen table, but through faith created by the Word of God you already have the Bread of Life (John 6:35) forever – and your offerings allow you to put this faith into action. God grant us a widow’s faith. Amen.